At first, former CNN Headline News anchor Lynne Russell says, she didn’t think she or her husband Chuck de Caro would need to use the handguns they routinely carry for self-protection from the robber they encountered at a Motel 6 in Albuquerque. Her husband had come out of the shower when the armed robber pushed Russell into the room and on the bed, and despite his wild talk only seemed interested in taking their belongings. Still, de Caro managed to get to his weapon, and it’s a good thing the former CNN reporter did:

A former CNN reporter was wounded three times Tuesday night during a deadly shootout with a man who allegedly tried to rob him and his wife in a New Mexico motel room.

Chuck de Caro and his wife, former Headline News anchor and CNN correspondent Lynne Russell, were on a road trip and spending the night at an Albuquerque motel when de Caro killed the man during what Russell called an attempted robbery. …

De Caro, who worked at CNN in the mid-1980s as special assignments correspondent, was coming out of the bathroom after taking a shower and saw Russell being held at gunpoint.

“He tried to change the guy’s mind,” Russell said.

The gunman wanted money and other valuables, she said.

She told the gunman she would look in her purse to see what they had. She reached down and put one of the two handguns the couple had in a side table into the purse. She gave the handbag to her husband.

Russell said the guns were legal, something police are still investigating.

Investigating? The Albuquerque PD did say they anticipate filing no charges against de Caro or Russell, and that’s the correct outcome. Even assuming that the couple didn’t have all the correct paperwork, is the status of the weapons that the victims used to defend themselves really the issue? De Caro has three bullet wounds in him, so it’s safe to say that he didn’t set out to ambush some poor bystander by cleverly hiding in the shower naked until his mark just so happened to walk into their hotel room looking for directions.

According to Russell and the CNN report, the perpetrator fired first, at what sounds like close range. How did de Caro manage to win that gunfight? “He’s a better shot,” Russell explains. Apparently so. And fortunately, de Caro and Russell had the opportunity to defend themselves against a violent assault, and thereby save their lives. Without having the firearms and their training available, this headline would have read Former CNN Anchor, Reporter Found Murdered in Motel 6.